Visualizing Camera Movement in Scene I of Sherlock’s “The Six Thatchers”
Camera movement is one of the most basic aspects of cinematic storytelling and when you notice it, it’s usually because you’re meant to. The kind of camera movement I’m mapping in my Sherlock video above is extremely subtle. It’s not the kind of camera work that will win awards or accolades because it’s as fundamental to cinematic (and now television) grammar as as my first person writing style is to this meta. You’ll see a restless camera everywhere now that I’ve brought it to your attention.
In the case of Sherlock the first of six similar shots in T6T’s introduction is the only completely static shot where the camera doesn’t move at all, and it’s the shot that establishes Sherlock’s boredom. His total disengagement from Mycroft’s proceedings has gone unnoticed for a spell until Mycroft realizes his little brother has been too still, too quiet for too long- while silently and flippantly tweeting.
Here are some examples of more obvious camera work. It’s a short video and worth a gander.
Interesting! It’s striking that the director would make this choice, given that I assume a static camera would be the easiest, most intuitive choice. Why bother with a moving camera for such a subtle effect? But it’s true that it does make the scene just a bit more visually interesting, even when we’re not consciously aware of it.
I had a day off from work, so I decided to reread Laura Mulvey’s seminal (ahem) feminist essay on gender in film, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (opens a PDF), with BBC Sherlock in mind, and maybe jot down a few notes. Then this just sort of happened.
So this essay is dazzling and unsettlingly brilliant. It’s been a long time since I read it, but the weight and power of it stuck with me, even when I couldn’t remember the details of the argument.
It is so tempting to dismiss or reject a theory like Mulvey’s – to say, “No, not for me, it’s not like that. Cinematic pleasure doesn’t have to be misogynistic. It can be empowering, it can be radical and transgressive.” Of course I want to say that, because I’m a feminist and I love movies. I love visual media. Furthermore, a big part of what I love (maybe you can’t even call it a “part”, because can it really be separated from the whole?) are the powerful erotics of cinema.
Naturally, I want to claim that power as a force for “good”, but can I? I want to say… yes. But it’s a hesitant, provisional yes, that I think HAS to come with a Mulvey-shaped asterisk. We *cannot* forget this essay, because as easy and tempting as it is to ignore it or dismiss it or claim it’s outdated and irrelevant, it is tempting *precisely* because cinema is such a highly seductive force that it’s almost impossible to resist. And when we are seduced, logic and reason evaporate in a mist of pleasure.
Another really interesting meta! It raises so many interesting points my brain can’t think about clearly enough at the moment, but I hope to come back to them. But two things I do want to mention 1. I love your point about the female characters in Sherlock not being coded for strong visual and erotic impact (apart from Irene who is a special case). This is one of the things I love about the show. I’m not saying the intention had anything to do with feminist concerns – it could be just toning everyone else down so as to concentrate as much visual pleasure on Sherlock himself. But I do like the final effect – that the women on this show are not presented as conventionally sexy or glamorous, that they are not noticeably younger than the male characters, and that they are, in terms of appearance, much closer to “ordinary” women than is the case with a lot of TV shows. (My impression is also that there is a difference in this respect between British and American TV, with a stronger tradition in American TV of female characters being exceptionally sexy and beautiful.) 2. I also love the point you make about Sherlock being at once sexually available to the viewers but ultimately sexually unobtainable, an object of desire, but being closed off sexually as a character. I think the tension this creates is part of his mystique and appeal (not necessarily conscious) and that is another reason why I think the writers wouldn’t fully develop any sexual or romantic theme for him. It would reduce the effect of this tension and then also of this kind of appeal. I’m not saying I can’t imagine them ever doing this but this tension seems to have been part of the package, especially in S1 and S2. I sense a slight change in the way visual pleasure and this tension work in S4 and I wonder if it is connected to the notion of Sherlock becoming “more human” (or “more ordinary”).
Thanks again for your thoughts!
I sense a slight change in the way visual pleasure and this tension work in S4
I tend to agree with you, on this. Certainly Sherlock is still devastatingly attractive in S3 and S4, but I think there has been less emphasis in recent seasons on shooting him in this beautiful but stylized and distancing way. It’s hard to picture Lana Turner dressed like a junkie, with greasy hair or ratty clothes. 😉
And yeah, this shift is probably because they are trying to make him feel more human and relatable – not so glamorous and remote. They’re using a visual language to illustrate his character development.
I wonder about Sherlock in S4, though. He seems to vacillate wildly between someone who is glamorized, sexualized, and objectified and a more desexualized version. Junkie Sherlock is very sexual. his gestures – louche, wearing dressing gowns over his clothes (bedroom wear as outerwear – what would you say to a female protagonist wearing a sheath dress and silk robe?). Also – the creepiness of TLD where he is the object of Culverton’s fantasy (Smith stares at Sherlock as he sleeps – the very epitome of dangerous male gaze). The energy of that creepy interaction drives the momentum of the whole episode. Opposite really in TST and TFP where he looks just beige….down to his makeup. What I think overall is: for a male character to embody the female principal in film (objectification by the male gaze) it has to be carried out by the characters in the movie. We, as viewers, are perhaps not wired to pickup on this exception, except by example. When we have that in-film-proxy (once was John, in TLD – Culverton Smith), the character of Sherlock does assume this role.
Well, there’s a sound reason why this happens, in the story: it’s a way to cut to the next scene. John goes to Baker Street and we will see him walk by this wallpaper,
It does, however, like other editing techniques in TST, make it look like this is Sherlock’s dream or imagination, doesn’t it?
The idea that Sherlock has been at Baker Street, ‘this whole time’, is certainly been strong since TAB,
this was brilliant on so many levels. not just technically but also the way he can’t help deducing even when destroying himself. and subconsciously and even unwillingly; still caring.
THIS SHOT WAS SO FKN COOL. DIRECTOR APPRECIATION.
NOT TO MENTION THE FONT CHANGES FOR WHEN HE’S HIGH COMPARED TO SOBER!
I will never not reblog gifsets of the bag deduction, the window deduction or the anyone deduction. TLD was a masterpiece in the deductions part and I’m drooling over these scenes whenever I see them.
BUT NO LOOK-
Normal deductions = a computer font, like it has been printed out = clear-cut, definite thinking
High deductions = written in what looks like chalk = vague, erasable, not definite, unsure way of thinking
how is it fucking possible to go from THIS PIECE OF CONTEMPORARY ART to the shitshow that was tfp? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET OVER IT? Accept it? say it’s real? try to convince myself is not real? there’s really no fucking sense to it. I am trying not to tin hat, but LOOK AT IT. This is writing, and cinematography, and directing, and the sfx, the acting. EVERYTHING IS PERFECT. This is brilliant. I’ve studied cinema for a LONG TIME AND I’VE SEEN A LOT OF GOOD SHIT AND THIS IS STILL MESMERIZING TO ME
fuck this show. honestly, how could tfp be in the final episode of a series that had THIS BEAUTIFUL FUCKING SCENE on it? AND THIS IS NOT THE BEST SCENE IN THE EPISODE ARE U AIGDAIUBSJ
fuck tfp.
@escaroles As a filmmaker, I can but agree with EVERY. BLOODY. WORD.
The Lying Detective, while still ripe with inconsistencies and weird fuckery – the two Marys or morphing lobby walls come to mind – it was brilliantly written cinematography porn.
I’m not sure what happened, but the glaring differences in cinematic sophistication we witnessed in s4 are, to me, the smoking gun in the Fuckery Gallery we have been compiling.
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